


Rufio and the Abominable Yeti

by Pandasushiroll



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cute Kids, Gen, Humor, M/M, Rufio is jealous, silliness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3723262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandasushiroll/pseuds/Pandasushiroll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rufio has had to make some adjustments in the wake of Felix's arrival, and he is not happy about it. Personally, Rufio has always thought that the boy was stupidly tall, big, dumb, and annoying. But Pan, unfortunately, never seemed to share his sentiments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Yeti

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahaha. This is basically just a series of drabbles and stuff, mostly from Rufio's point of view. They're pretty silly and aren't in any particular order. But it is a little different because Rufio's language isn't nearly as flowery as Peter and Felix's is, so it's a bit of an experiment in that way I suppose?

Felix was good at everything. Okay. Well. Maybe not _everything,_ but he was damn near close. Anything Pan asked him to do to, he got done. Quick and dirty. _Pun intended._ It was one of the traits that irritated Rufio the most about him. Felix’s ability to do just about anything Pan asked him to do. He was the most trusted, most loyal, _favorite._

And that was really annoying considering that Rufio had been there at least fifty years longer than him. He felt so…underappreciated. Maybe Pan just couldn’t see it. Maybe he was blinded by the fact that Felix was “exotic”; a freakishly large boy who stood nearly six and half feet tall—in fact, now that he was thinking of it, Rufio was certain it must’ve had something to do with his funny accent, Swinglish, or whatever the hell it was. He wasn’t from England like all the rest of them had been, but up somewhere far in the North. Where it rained snow and froze all the plants over.

.

When Felix had first shown up, looking petrified and standing at a mere 5’2’’ Rufio had thought: _Kind of scrawny to_ _be a Lost Boy_. But had said nothing because he trusted Pan’s judgement. Even though they soon discovered that Felix was pretty terrible at most tasks assigned to him, had a peculiar appetite for _vegetables_ and was afraid of heights. Somehow the kid _afraid of heights_ was Pan’s favorite. He hated flying!

(But Pan had one hell of a time dragging the poor boy around and pretending to “drop” him once they were finally up in the air).

Though in hindsight, Felix’s fear of heights sort of made sense considering what Pan had done to him…

They had been up at the very top of the mountain, where the water went roaring off the edge and tumbling down to pour out into the river that cut the island in half, and let out into the Caribbean. Felix was a nervous tiny thing at the time. Constantly jittery and looking over his shoulder in astonishment at Nibbs, who looked amused as all hell at the boy’s apparent fear. (Nibbs had always been good about sensing what was about to happen before it did. He followed Pan’s line of thought pretty easily).

Pan had led the way with all the grace of a king leading his subjects to paradise. Once they were at the top, Felix turned sea foam white with this horrified look on his face, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the thin air much too quickly. Rufio had thought he’d been on the verge of passing out at the time.

“Um, Pan? He looks ready to pass out.”

Pan had laughed rather haughtily at the idea. “Nonsense! He’s just excited!”

“I’m…I’m really not.” Felix had squeaked out, getting a small chuckle from Nibbs. Rufio glanced over his shoulder and saw the other boy with a hand over his mouth. Probably to cage in the giggles.

Pan had laughed again, this time with even more glee, which resulted in this terrifyingly wild expression on his face. Clapping a hand on Felix’s back, he stuck close to his side, walking the boy right up to the edge where water met rock and went somersaulting over the edge. “Do you trust me, Felix?”

“Honestly?” His voice was so high, his eyes wide with fear. Pan nodded, Felix shook his head.

Looking disappointed, Pan sighed, though the sound was lost beneath the roar of the falls. “We’ll just have to fix that then, won’t we?”

Felix hardly had the time to look confused before he was abruptly shoved over the edge by Pan, who let him fall for two full minutes—because he was delayed by the delight he took in hearing Felix’s unbridled screams of terror—before he leapt over the edge after him. There was another incident with a roof and snow. Another time he and Felix had somehow managed switching bodies and he’d had to cart around watermelons and think depressing thoughts all day to keep himself from floating up into the sky. Rufio couldn’t really blame him for having such a fear of heights.

But he _could_ blame him for being a suck up and taking up all of Pan’s attention. So he did.

.

Maybe it was because Felix had been so much more _work_ than the rest of the boys. He had gone home a grand total of _six times_ before he finally stayed on Neverland. Which Rufio had never understood. Why anyone would want to leave was beyond him. If there was a heaven, he was certain Neverland would be way better, because well…he just _knew._

Rufio had never quite figured out why Felix had gone home so much, because he hadn’t seemed to miss it when he was on the island.

.

But after some coaxing from himself, Nibbs, and Curly, Felix had loosened up quite a bit. Pan taught him how to not suck so much at games and hunting, and soon it felt like he would be staying permanently.

But he hadn’t.

Every time without fail, he would get this look on his face and the boys knew he was going home. Pan always looked somewhere between devastated and furious, but never said anything of it.

.

The boys never questioned the angry red marks or immense bruises that were on Felix’s skin. The wounds would heal pretty quickly with the aid of Pan’s magic, but they would always scar over, leaving pale marks all over Felix’s body. And by the time he finally stayed, he was littered with them.

But the boys weren’t allowed to ask. Or stare.

So they didn’t.

.

It couldn’t have been because of the tragic backstory, because all the boys had one of those. So maybe it was the weird nation Pan got him from. Swede…something. Either way, whatever English Felix had learned was very different from the English the rest of the boys spoke. Somehow, Felix could always manage to mess up an idiom, the words all out of order or just…off slightly.

Like,

“Does it ever rain goats and sheep out here?”

Or,

“We’ll be sitting hens, if we don’t get a move on soon.”

Personally, the old sayings were the best,

“Alls in a well that ends in a well, right?”

Sometimes it wasn’t that he messed up an idiom, but used one that the boys had never heard before.

Like,

“Nibbs has ice in his stomach.”

This, in normal good ol’ British English, meant: Nibbs was a cool kid

Or,

“This is pie.”

Which apparently means, “It’s broken”. Somehow.

.

Personally, the best thing Felix has ever said happened one evening when the boys were gathered around a bonfire roasting various kinds of fruit.

Pan, as always, had his trademark mangos.

Nibbs and Curly preferred Pears.

Rufio had dragon fruit, to be just a bit more exotic than everyone else.

Tootles made the odd decision to mix coconuts and oranges.

And Felix had brought _vegetables,_ like a weirdo.

.

Pan crinkled his nose at Felix as he pulled his food of choice from its space next to the fire, where they had turned a brownish color, and were now steaming as the tall boy lifted them toward his face. “Felix. I said to bring something for dessert, not bring _vegetables.”_

Felix blinked at him, incredulous. “This is dessert.”

Tootles gaped at him, distraught at the notion that this poor, twisted, simpleton had never experienced the joy of true dessert. “No, Felix. No. Veg-get-ables are definitely not dessert.”

Rufio had to laugh at Tootles’ odd pronunciation of the word “vegetables”.

“You do know it’s pronounced, _vegetables,_ right?” Curly had to wonder with his moppy little head tilted.

“Oh I know. I just choose to say it differently. If Felix gets to say weird stuff, then so do I.” Tootles said rather proudly, expertly squashing his bits of heated orange into the warmed meat of his coconuts.

Pan chuckled at this, lifting a piece of warm mango to his lips, debating on whether or not he wanted to share with Felix. “I don’t know about that, Felix is a pretty special boy.”

Said boy looked much too happy for Rufio’s taste.

“If by pretty special you mean _weird_ then yeah. I second that.”

Pan gave him a look that clearly outlined the perimeters of what was okay to make fun of and what wasn’t. Clearly Felix was on the latter list.

“Well you know what they say, “ Felix began, and everyone quieted, just to hear what would come out of the boy’s mouth. “Taste is like a butt—divided.”

It was the first time Rufio had ever heard Pan snort, then laugh so hard he fell off his log, treasured mango all but forgotten on the forest floor. Rufio had gaped, because honestly the sight had been a little terrifying. Their leader had nearly suffocated, and all because some weird tall kid said something about taste and butts.

.

Felix was always doing shit like that. Making Pan laugh for minutes on end, til the point of tears! It was infuriating. And annoying. But Rufio never said anything of it to Pan. No, he just took out his annoyances on Felix.

“Why d’you gotta be such a _yeti?”_

“A yeti? What the hells a yeti?” Felix hadn’t even looked offended. Just sort of vaguely confused.

“It’s a big, stupid, ugly, hairy white thing that’s big and stupid, _like you.”_ Rufio sneered, gleeful in the face of Felix’s blank expression.

Instantly, the tall boy replied, “You said big and stupid twice.”

Pan’s cackle in response had Rufio immediately stomping away and grumbling to himself about the unfairness of it all.

.


	2. Upside Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this "chapter" comes the introduction of Hook and mentions of a few other fairy tale friends! Hope you enjoy~

They always talked close together, Rufio noticed. Felix and Pan never stood more than a few feet apart from one another, and every conversation they had was like a series of secret references to things the other boys weren’t supposed to know about.

Like they were the only two on the entire island. Like the rest of the world faded away. Like they were a two boy circle.

Rufio really hated being on the outside of that circle.

.

 

“I hate that guy.”

“Who?” Tootles asked with his head titled, watching Rufio stack more sticks onto the pile in his arms.

“Felix.” He seethed, accidentally stepping on a branch he’d meant to lift onto the pile, and breaking it in half. “Dammit!”

 _“Felix?_ Why?” Tootles apparently didn’t get how awful Felix really was.

“Because he’s a dick.” Bare as bones, obvious and to the point with his complaints. That’s how Rufio worked.

Tootles, who was much more filled out, with a mild case of caring and willingness to befriend, was a bit more like a sack of meat. Full of feelings and friendship. “He’s a dick? How so?”

How Tootles had not seen how the meteor (that was Felix) crash landed onto their island and was currently running amok ruining things, was beyond mystifying. Rufio gaped at him. “You don’t see how he’s a dick? Seriously?”

Tootles took a few moments to think it over, eyes caramel and warm as they drifted up toward the sky. “No…not really. He’s nice to the twins and Nibbs and Curly really seem to like him.”

“Well they’re dumb!”

Betrayed, and admittedly, a little lost now that he had wandered in the rainforest section of the island, Rufio puckered his lips, the taste of betrayal sour in his mouth. Tootles’ clumsy teetering steps behind him was the only indication he had that the other boy was still following, as he was too stubborn (and a little embarrassed that he had gotten lost) to look over his shoulder.

.

Okay, so maybe Felix wasn’t _all_ bad. He looked after the smaller boys and could be surprisingly…motherly sometimes. Namely when the lot of the boys was left groaning and moaning in their bed rolls after a particularly rough scavenger hunt in which Pan had sneezed and accidentally sent half the boys tumbling down a hill. (Apparently mermaid scales gave him weird allergies). The other half stood at the top of the hill looking down in utter confusion.

Felix had remained safely beside Pan the entire time (because he was mister _perfect)_ so he was left unharmed through the whole ordeal, but Rufio had gotten caught in the mass of boys as they all went tumbling. The chorus of pained noises drowned out by the “sheepish” laughter of Pan as he picked his way through the tangle of limbs all splayed out in different directions, glancing toward the top of the hill at Felix, a little proud of the “unintentional” amount of trouble he’d caused.

“Sorry boys, caught a whiff of something on the mermaid scales and everything went dark.” Pan cooed apologetically.

.

Rufio had to be carried back to the tree house on Felix’s back. And that had been nothing short of the most embarrassing moment of his life thus far. He glowered at the tall boy as Felix set him down, movements ginger and careful. He wasn’t exactly sure _why_ Felix was being so delicate. It didn’t fit. Why should he care if he jostled the swollen ankle?

“Sorry.” He said suddenly. Now he was apologizing? Who _was_ this kid?

The apology made sense a few moments later when Felix gripped the space above the red swollen skin and set Rufio’s ankle on one of his lanky knees. He bandaged the wound with a patient sort of practice, the kind that avoided putting unnecessary pressure on the wound or anything. It was kind of impressive. At least, it would have been if Rufio weren’t so stubbornly stuck on the idea that Felix was just a dick and nothing else.

.

Felix read too.

Which was unusual. Apparently, back in Sweden, he would read to his two younger brothers, and so the moment he figured out how to read English, and found a few stories in the old man’s* cabin, he set about reading to the younger boys. Around the campfire, around bed time, around any time they wanted to hear something nice and adventurous.

Even when he didn’t have a book, he got Pan to settle down and tell one of his stories from his days at sea—which was something Rufio was torn on. On the one hand, he got to hear about Pan’s days travelling with pirates, but on the other hand, it was Felix who had to coax the stories out of him. Not because he wasn’t willing to have everyone’s attention, but because the guy could never hold still unless he was sitting next to Felix. Or looking at Felix. Or just…sort of in the vicinity of Felix.

He’d always had that effect on Pan, and it had been the weirdest thing.

In the time that Felix had stayed with them, Rufio had seen his leader be in a constant state of buzzing excitement and serene calm. Like he was totally at peace and overwhelmingly excited all at once. Like the way the sunshine bursts through the sun and falls in scattered rays all over the earth’s surface. It can’t be contained, but it evens out eventually.

It’s something that Rufio knew he should have been jealous of. But when he thought of the way Pan’s mood plummeted every time Felix was absent, he thought to himself, _I don’t want to be responsible for that_. And found the giant Swedish boy to be considerably more tolerable.

.

On the old man*: Rufio had taken to calling Killian Jones, the infamous captain of the Jolly Roger (which sat stationed on the far south of the island in Cannibal Cove) “old man”. Cause he was old. And a man.

Killian had an…interesting involvement to say the least.

According to Pan, he and Killian were old friends.

.

By some stroke of luck, and a bundle of childish tenacity, Peter had secured passage on the Iron Maiden (the ship before the Jolly Roger), which at the time had been toting some very mysterious cargo. A trunk, constantly covered with tarp and handled with gloved care. No man had been allowed to open it or remain too close to the chest at any given time.

So naturally, Pan had gone right ahead and opened the trunk to see for himself. What he found, as he had told Rufio on his seventh night on the island, was pure “freedom”.

“They kept freedom in a trunk?” He said, nose crinkled. “How’d they manage that?”

The other boy laughed, shaking his head from side to side gently. “No. I mean, they didn’t _really_ have freedom in a trunk, doofus. It was this gold dust. It was gold and glowed as bright as the sun—which made it really hard to look at sometimes, but I managed. Anyway, I found the glowing dust and I wasn’t totally sure what was so special about it so I closed the trunk and went back to my cabin.” He almost sounded uninterested, as if that were all there was to the story, but Rufio knew better.

After a few moments pause, in which Pan took a chunk of mango between his teeth and sighed for dramatic effect, he continued. “And nothing else happened that night.” He looked back and forth between Rufio and Nibbs, the only two Lost Boys on the island at the time. “But the next morning...things were different.”

“How?” Rufio said immediately, leaning forward, on the edge of his seat and hanging on to every word that left Pan’s mouth.

“We almost crashed!”

Rufio gasped, Nibbs remained wide eyed and impressed, Peter nodded as if he were confirming an implausible detail. But the three of them knew he was telling the truth. They wouldn’t be sitting on the beach if he hadn’t been.

“An island had sprouted up in the middle of the night! Which I found weird cos the night before I remember having this dream about this magical place…where time was still and there were no rules. No teachers or parents, no responsibilities. And this island fit the bill exactly. An exact replica of my dream.“

He knew just when to exaggerate the details and when to remain more grounded, leaving more to the imagination. He knew just went to get exact and remain vague. For Pan had long since mastered the ability to tell a story and as the years passed, he only got better at it.

“Kil was absolutely pissed.” Pan chuckled, almost giggling with glee at the memory. “He chewed out the guy in the eagle’s nest pretty good. The Iron Maiden’d been effectively beached and the entire bottom side of it was all scuffed up.”

Nibbs nodded and looked awfully sympathetic, as if he too understood the pain of having your pirate ship beached and all scuffed up.

“Then to make it even more hilarious, I had forgotten about the invention of the mermaids, and I hadn’t really given them any rules yet. So the minute we stepped off the ship to try and figure out how to get it off land they ripped out the whole bottom! It would’ve sank if had been any further out.”

Rufio laughed, amused at the notion that early Pan hadn’t set any rules yet. “How did the guy not see an entire island pop up?”

Pan shrugged, grinning madly at the idea of his own sneakiness. “I guess I was just too clever for him.”

.

He’d always been curious about how exactly Killian had come across that trunk, but Rufio never cared enough to pry an answer out of the captain or his leader. So he remained blissfully ignorant. He was totally content with his new life. Filled with pirates and mermaids, sitting on beaches listening to stories after running about the island all day long. It was perfect. Paradise.

And then Felix had shown up.

.

Physically speaking, Felix was definitely the oldest boy on the island. By the time Peter finally got him to stay, he had just hit seventeen, and that is where Pan wanted him to remain. So, with a little convincing, and with the arrival of the twin eight year olds Ethan and Jeremy, Felix stayed.

(Rufio had always gotten the feeling that the twins were a sort of…present for Felix. He was always looking after them like they were his own children, which was a little weird considering that they were all kids, but that didn’t stop him from playing mommy from time to time anyway.)

Since he stood at roughly six and a half feet, Rufio made it a point to stand on higher ground as often as he could. Not that it really helped much. Felix was so damn tall that he could blend in with the trees if he wanted to. And at most Rufio could only make it to the bottom of his chin. He can count on one hand the number of times he has been taller with Felix standing up straight, and none of them involved flat ground. Interestingly enough, Rufio had noticed that as time passed and Felix grew, parts of the island got taller and deeper. Hills and valleys. As if Pan were purposely creating high and low ground. And Rufio had to wonder if the boy was doing it to make Felix seem smaller or himself seem taller.

Maybe it was neither. Maybe it was a mix of both. Either way, it made Rufio’s endeavor to be on level ground with Felix much easier.

.

He got along with girls.

Not that it was anything to be jealous of.

It was just…weird.

Why anyone would want to be friends with girls or even spend time around them willingly, was beyond Rufio. He found them just as annoying as Pan did, and didn’t waste a second introducing himself when Killian boasted his newest crew member: a woman named Mulan. Some lady he had found in his journeys through the Asian seas. Not that anyone except Felix (and Curly) really cared. That dingbat actually made a point to go to the pirate ship and _introduce_ himself to her. With his name and everything!

She had a way with swords though. Rufio had to give her that. Watching her and Killian spar on deck was something like watching a star burst into existence. Colorful, extravagant, and rare.

Each of them had signature colors and styles. Killian was more of a leather clad swashbuckler, with the grace of a fencing nobleman, clad in black and wrapped in leather. While Mulan moved the expertise and ferocity of a dragon, snapping forward every now and then to catch her opponent off guard. She was easily the scariest, intimidatingest, weirdest lady he had ever met.

Even Pan looked a little impressed (though he tried playing it off most of the time as simple curiosity).

Felix, unsurprisingly, loved talking to her and hearing of all her tales at sea.

.

Things got even weirder when Killian brought back yet _another_ girl. Though he insisted that this one was only temporary and was simply “looking for her prince”.

Her arrival had been sort of funny actually, because she was quite small, somewhere between Curly and Tootles in stature and just as skinny as Felix. Her name was something like Rose or Aurora or something. Rufio hadn’t really been paying attention.

But he had noticed the way she seemed rather…blown away by everything she encountered. Like she’d never been to an enchanted island before. The best part was in the process of meeting all the boys, she hadn’t noticed Felix looming behind her, with that silent, unassuming way of his.

So when she turned around to walk back to the ship with Mulan, she screamed and leapt back almost three feet, with a dainty hand pressed to her chest. Like her heart might beat so hard it’d fly out.

They had all a good laugh that day, mostly because the woman had no idea that Felix was for all intents and purposes _harmless._

.

“You’re not going back!”

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t. You’re just being stupid. And I know you’re better than that.”

It wasn’t unusual to hear Pan and Felix bickering every now and then. They bickered and flirted all over the place. But sometimes, Rufio could tell that they weren’t just messing around. There was something deeper. Something deep under the surface that was important. Important and molten hot. Something that Felix clearly didn’t want to talk about.

Rufio could tell it drove Pan crazy.

 

"I can just bring them here if I really have to. It's no big--"

"No." Felix shook his head, looking more sullen than a wet cat. "You can't do that."

Rufio had stumbled across them arguing, rather heatedly, about Felix’s next departure. These conversations were never pleasant, which is why most of them were had in a secluded area, far away from the other boys. But today, perhaps as a result of the fresh pink mark stretching across Felix’s face, Pan seemed even more agitated than he usually did. To be fair, when Felix had arrived for his visit this time, he’d had something called “stitches” in his head, a few small cuts on his cheeks, a crooked nose, spots of black and blue littering his thin frame, and one large angry red mark cutting diagonally across his face. Pan had been furious, and spent the day meticulously pressing his fingers to the cuts and bruises to heal them over, and straightening out the bits that hadn’t set quite right.

"Why not?"

"You know why. They have lives. They're going to grow up. They _have to._ "

"So why do you have to stay?"

Felix swallowed. "It was just an accident."

“He smashed a fucking plate over your head and threw you down the stairs. You think that was an accident?”

Felix for his part, looked a little stunned, then horribly angry. “How did you—were you _spying_ on me?”

“I was checking in on you since you’ve devoted yourself to living with a fucking _psychopath.”_

“I don’t need you to look after me, Peter.”

And then it all made sense. Why Pan paid him so much attention. It was so obvious in hindsight. How could he have missed something so unbelievably obvious?

Pan reached up, thumb stroking over Felix’s cheek, eyes looking soggy and sullen. “Stay.”

“Peter—“

“Stay, Felix. Stay with me.” Rufio had never heard Pan speak so softly, so uncertain of how his words would be received. He sounded…frightened. “Please. Just. Just stay where it’s safe.”

It was quiet. Deathly quiet. The silence so loud it was deafening, muting all other noise on the island. Pan waited. Rufio watched. Felix sighed, looking so profoundly old. Like Killian when he listened to one of Pan's long convoluted metaphors about the world.

“You know that I can’t.”

The look on Pan's face was burned into his skull. Crushed, defeated,  _rejected._

 

.

The good news was he still had Tootles.

Tootles with his bumbling and silly nature. With his constant cravings for snacks and his willingness to follow Rufio around and listen to what he had to say. It was nice to be listened to. He hung on to every word and tried his best to follow Rufio’s lines of thought. Most of the time he just blinded agreed with whatever he said, and that was rather comforting. He tried his best to help out and always saved him a seat. And he was never more than twelve steps away.

It was really nice.

And later that day, after watching Pan beg Felix to stay and as he watched Tootles pluck a dragon fruit off the ground and bring it toward him, Rufio wondered if this is what it must have been like to have a Felix.


	3. Strange Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly makes a dazzling debut~

On rare occasion (really, really, _really_ rare occasion) Rufio and Felix got along quite swimmingly. It only happened once in a blue moon, but still, it happened.

There were at least two things they could bond over, and that was: hating mermaids and yodeling.

.

Mermaids were an essential and regular part of living on Neverland. Peter had created them a long time ago as a precaution against unwanted visitors. If any undesirables happened to wander into Peter’s realm of magic, their ship (and everything on it) was torn to shreds by the fury of those voluptuous feminine fishes. (He’d had an awkward, albeit helpful, vocabulary lesson from Killian on ways to describe women, and more and more lately Rufio was finding apt uses for the terms floating around in his head.) Anyway, Rufio understood their purpose. They were just so…creepy.

And girly. And they were the only feminine thing that Peter, as far as anyone knew, really enjoyed. He thought they were glorious—though Rufio had the sneaking suspicion that the boy was more proud of the fact that they were his creation than about the fact that they were female.

Regardless, Rufio didn’t enjoy their company.

They were always creeping around beneath the depths, and sure they were helpful when the boys wanted to spend long hours exploring the graveyard of ship wreckage just off the shore of the island. (A mermaid’s kiss allowed anyone to breathe underwater for a period of time, and that Rufio suspected, was another reason for the mermaids to exist, but anyway, back to the other stuff.)

The way they looked at Peter was…weird. Sort of like Felix but a bit more hungry. Like they could gobble him up the same way they did the unfortunate sailors. And they always touched him, stroking at his body as if they were in a constant state of reference, pawing at him like he was some sacred object. In a way it sort of made sense, he was their creator and everything, Rufio understood that part of it. It was the way they licked their lips and blew kisses at the other boy that he didn’t really understand. And they always bickered over who got to kiss Peter when they all went scouring below the water to look at the wreckage of ships. When they finally _did_ choose someone to kiss Peter, they were always overjoyed and practically swooning when it was all over. (Rufio also noticed, with a bit of disgust, that every now and then when the mermaid’s kissed Peter, he could spot a small sliver of salvia stringing their mouths together.)

He knew for a fact Felix didn’t like it.

(Which is why, he supposed, Felix made a point to try and freeze the ladies with one of his frigid glares every chance he got.)

When they had to go swimming, he always looked sour in the face and rigid in his posture, like he was really restraining himself. And often stood off to the side, white knuckled with his hand on his belt, just an inch away from his dagger, as he watched Peter interact with the fish ladies.

Peter, of course, was no help with the way he was always sitting in the middle of the lagoon, hovering over the water as they all surfaced to giggle and grin at him. In all honesty, Rufio figured the cold glares had something to do with the fact that Felix wanted Peter all to himself.

He and Peter were always selfish with each other like that.

.

On the second source of comradery: yodeling.

At any given time Killian had somewhere around twenty something men on his ship, plus the dragon lady and the blonde princess who was always trailing after her. (He had some serious qualms and questions in regard to those two, like why they were always holding hands and why they felt the need to walk so closely together—and why they were always smiling and giggling—it was almost like a girly version of the things he had caught Felix and Peter doing when they thought no one was looking.)

Anyway, Killian’s crew had always been a source of entertainment for the boys. It was fun to prank them, cause they never saw it coming! After two centuries you’d think they’d learn to have a bit more foresight but, alas, Killian picked them for efficiency over intelligence and that left the pool of prankable victims rather large. And in this pool of prankable people was a man named Shank (or maybe it was Plank? Ehhh, details). Shank had a really bad habit of yodeling (to himself he claimed) to pass the time while he swabbed the deck.

And my, what an irritating sound it was.

It was so loud that it drifted off the deck, dragged itself up the beach, wound around the various trees, plowed through wood and brush until finally it found and assaulted Rufio’s ears. Every time it happened the boy found himself wishing for the sweet relief of deafness just so his suffering would be put to an end. And sometimes, should Felix be in the same room as he, the two would lock eyes and grimace in unison.

.

Felix and Peter played some truly strange games with each other. They also played weird versions of well-known games. At least, Rufio _thought_ they were supposed to be games.

Their version of wrestling, for example, involved no clothes and biting. Which…didn’t really make much sense in Rufio’s mind cause he was certain that was against some rule somewhere. (Though Peter always claimed it was better to break the rules than follow them, no biting had always been a policy that Rufio was okay with.) But none the less, one day he’d turned the corner, looking for some dragon fruit and some oranges for Tootles, and there they were. Naked and on the floor, Felix with his wrists pinned above his head and Peter sort of…writhing above him.

“Um. What’re you _doing?”_ The question had left his mouth before he could stop it, stunned by the weird visual his eyes were taking in, brain rapidly trying to process and catch up to whatever the hell was happening in front of him. Peter was above Felix, Felix was beneath Peter and they looked like they were stuck together somehow. But it was sort of hard to tell which limb went with who since they were both naked and covered in dirt.

Felix, who had just had his head thrown back, immediately stiffened, jolting up in surprise and _shoving Peter off him_ in some sort of desperate attempt. Rufio had never seen Felix so flustered before. Peter, for his part, looked quite offended, but remained in the spot he’d fallen into and began brushing some of the dirt that had gathered on his chest.

“We—we’re just. Uh. We.” Felix stuttered, his brain frantically trying to crank out some plausible excuse. “Just—there was—“

“Wrestling.” Peter offered easily, checking his nails as if he were thoroughly bored with the situation.

Rufio’s forehead wrinkled, brows drawing together in confusion. “Wrestling?”

“Course!” Peter declared easily, with a weird sort of grin, the kind that meant the clearly whatever was going on here was a secret. “What else would we be doing?”

“I don’t know…” Rufio tilted his head to the side. It wasn’t really the nakedness. When Felix had first arrived it had been a real struggle to keep him from walking around naked. Cause apparently in Sweden nudity wasn’t a big deal. So he couldn’t fathom why Felix looked so uncomfortable _now._ It was all stuff Rufio had (unfortunately) seen before. “Why don’t you have any clothes on?”

Felix was looking a lot like a beached fish, with his mouth repeatedly opening and closing like he was trying to gasp in the right words. Again, Peter was left to take the helm of the explanation. “That’s how the Swedes do it.”

“Oh.” Simple enough explanation. Still…something felt _weird._ Like that wasn’t quite the right explanation. But he could tell from the look that Peter was giving him that it was the only explanation he was getting, and that he better leave before he got truly annoyed.

.

Don’t even get Rufio started on the weird sounds that come out of their room at night. At first he thought he better investigate, but from the way Peter was practically screaming Felix’s name, Rufio got the sense that whatever they were doing in there shouldn’t be interrupted.

.

He tried asking about it once. But not to Peter cause that just felt…weird and embarrassing, and he didn’t really care about what Felix thought so he picked him instead.

“What do you and Peter do at night?”

Felix stiffened, pulling seaweed from Ethan’s hair as he sat slapping his little knees in the older boy’s lap. “We sleep.”

“No I mean before that. What’re you guys doing that makes so much noise?” Ethan took this moment to tilt his head back so far that he was looking up at Felix with his little face upside down. “Do you play games?”

“Ethan. Head forward.” With delicate fingers, Felix tilted the boy’s head back forward and continued the process of removing sea objects from his hair. “And…you could say that.”

Immediately Ethan whined, “No fair! Why do we gotta miss out on the games? That’s no fair!”

“We play plenty of games during the daytime.” Felix replied easily, unscathed by the whiny tone the small boy had taken.

To his right, Rufio remained on his feet, scowling at the answer he’d be given. “You play games? What sort of games?”

There was a long pause. A pause in which Rufio could tell Felix was desperately trying to come up with a conceivable lie. But he wasn’t that good at it. Not when it came to the Lost Boys anyway. Felix was honest and caring by nature, and it was difficult for him to lie to the ones he cared about. Rufio tried to use that to his advantage. “And don’t tell me it’s just _wrestling.” Cause I know that isn’t right at all._

“The kind that are a secret.” Peter manifested into existence just to Rufio’s left, clapping a firm hand on his back. Rufio jumped, yelping as his body swiveled away from the sudden appearance of the king of Neverland. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head Rufio. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

His scowl softened as Peter lifted a hand and ruffled his hair affectionately. It was nice. Getting this sort of attention from Peter. “Now come on, I need your assistance with something.”

.

One time he asked Peter why he and Felix shared a room and the boy had just laughed and said, "Cause he's new. And fickle. I wanna keep him close so he doesn't feel neglected."

But Felix hadn't been new in a long while.

Rufio suspected it had something to do with the fact that they couldn't sleep without each other. They'd never discussed it in front of the boys. But every time he and Felix had a big enough tiff, when Felix couldn't stand to be in the same room as the other boy he slept with the rest of the boys in the den or in a makeshift camp above ground. And every time Rufio could hear him shifting around, moving as if he were trying to get comfortable but it just wasn't working.

Every morning afterward without fail when Felix and Peter reunited, they'd stare at each other for a long while and Peter would ask him how he slept.

"I didn't." Felix would always say.

And Rufio could tell from the look on Peter's face that he hadn't either. 

They never said it out loud. Not even when it was obvious to someone like Rufio. They couldn't sleep if they didn't sleep in the same room. And sometimes Rufio wondered to himself if that was what _love_ was. Being able to know, without saying a single thing, how the other person was feeling.

.

 

It should be clearly stated that Rufio absolutely _loved_ when Peter needed something from him. Whenever he was given his own special tasks in his own private meeting with Peter, Rufio could easily die a very happy boy. Or at least, he felt so happy he was sure if he were flying he would have floated up, up, up and into the stars.

And today, Peter didn’t disappoint, he’d ordered a special set of pranks on the pirate crew and even hinted that perhaps Felix may be involved at some point. Oh, the joy Rufio took in pranking Felix was incomparable. Like a…

.

Pranking Felix was maybe—possibly—definitely, one of the hardest tasks ever. First of all the guy is so tall that if you want to throw something at his face, you actually have to think about angles and how high you have to throw it and how hard you should throw it. It’s a huge pain in the ass. And even if there’s some rigging involved (it’s always good to get Nibbs involved here, him and Felix have a weird sense for angles and stuff) it never really goes well. It’s either just a second too late or too soon, or off by two degrees or _something else stupid_. Like a twin swinging from a vine or a sneeze or Peter suddenly jumping on Felix’s back.

.

“I said left. Left. LEFT. Tootles. Does that look like left to you?”

“Well…from my angle, yeah.”

An exasperated groan. “Well then go to your other left!”

Slightly was standing off to the right, being totally useless as he watched Rufio supervise Tootles. The two boys had been enlisted to assist in the pranking of Felix, which was a seemingly impossible endeavor. In fact, the notion was so impossible that when they’d first been approach, Slightly had thrown his hands in the air and said, “Impossible. It can’t be done.”

“Of course it can be done. No boy except Pan is unprankable! Come on, Slightly.” He’d insisted, waving a tree branch and pointing accusingly with it every now and then to emphasize his point. (It made him feel more authoritative.) “We just need to put our heads together and _think._ Think of something he won’t see coming.”

“So there’s no arguing with you then? You’re that determined?” Slightly looked less than enthused but Tootles kept a weary smile on, so Rufio remained optimistic.

“I’ve been _ordered_ to prank him.”

The other two boys exchanged a look, and then the trio lapsed into silence.With Rufio prodding at the ground with his impromptu pointer.

“Curly?” Tootles offered after a few moments of deliberation, and a few bites of pear.

Slightly shook his head. “He’d never agree to it.”

Rufio begged to differ. “Oh I think he can and he _will.”_

Slightly’s nose crinkled, his face scrunching up like he’d just eaten something sour. “He won’t do it! He’s terrible at lying and him and Felix actually get along, remember?”

“Nibbs?”

“Even more of a no go. Him and Felix have that weird…quiet thing going for them.” Slightly frowned at this idea, as if two people who liked to sit in silence was weird and a sign of something awful.

Tootles on the other hand, seemed endearingly intrigued. “What quiet thing?”

“They like to sit around in silence sometimes. It’s weird. I asked Pan about it once and he just shrugged and said it was a weird thing tall people liked to do sometimes.”

“Well how tall do you have to be in order to do it?” Tootles had the pear poised in front of his mouth, teeth sinking in after the question was asked.

Slightly rolled his eyes, sighing dramatically—presumably at the stream of Tootles questions. He always had to ask why things were the way they were and who was doing what and why. Rufio took over the helm of answering questions, “It’s not like…a height requirement or anything. They both just happen to be tall and they both like sitting in silence.”

“But why?” Rufio shrugged. Originally he’d be convinced it was just a weird yeti thing, but then Nibbs joined in on the quiet game and that theory went out the window. “I dunno.”

“Anyway back to the task at hand. How’re we gonna prank, Felix?”


End file.
